The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency – Real characters for real viewers

I’m still digging The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency on HBO. On first glance, you might tag the show as a blend of Murder She Wrote, Columbo, and Veronica Mars, but there’s really nothing like it on TV right now.

For one thing, the people on Detective Agency actually look like real people, not some Hollywood facsimile of what we imagine people might look like in a perfect world. Jill Scott’s Mma Romatswe is “traditionally built,” which in simple terms, means she looks like a lot of people who are watching her on TV. OK, maybe you could say that about Jessica Fletcher or Columbo, but certainly not Veronica Mars.

The other characters on Detective Agency look real, too — Grace Makutsi, played by Anika Noni Rose (you’ve seen her in Dreamgirls); JLB Matekoni, played by Lucian Msamati; and BK, played by Desmond Dube.

Rose is a hoot as Mma Romatswe’s nervy secretary (promoted to “assistant detective” last week). I’m pretty sure BK is gay, though I don’t know that they’ve come out and said as much. And I’m waiting for things to heat up between JLB the mechanic and Mma Romatswe. He almost said something to her in this week’s episode, but something happened to distract them, and he told her “it could wait.” Argh. We’ll have to wait, too.

The issues on the show are VERY real, including people who get AIDS, husbands who beat their wives, mothers whose sons go missing, babies kidnapped in the dark of night… Mma Romatswe doesn’t dismiss the sadness of all of this; in fact, when dealing with a difficult case, she often says to Grace, “This case is very sad.” I like that she just comes out and says it. No trying to minimize the sadness.

And you know, there’s just no way around it. Bad things happen, but people like Mma Romatswe are there to bring closure and help people to move on. She goes by instinct a lot. I think that helps with the human relations part of her cases, too. She’s not afraid to give someone the business if they deserve it, nor is she afraid to hug someone who needs it. Mma Romatswe’s own background as a battered wife who lost her baby gives her a poignant understanding about the deep sadness in the world.

Anyone else watching The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency? I hope so, because it’s a pleasant change from all the other detective riff-raff on the tube, and I would hate to see it yanked off the air.

Clacked by Jane Boursaw
on Apr 27, 2009 @ 16:00 EST5EDT